I left my heart in...seattle.

Seattle. is. amazing. If you have not been, you should book your flight today. I am slightly biased as I grew up in the 'burbs, but it really is great...really great. Seriously.

I was there for a week, and a week was just not long enough to do everything we wanted to do. We did not make it to pike place market, vivace, and a multitude of other places we wanted to visit. Tragedy I know...but we'll be back soon.

We did make it to some wonderful restaurants and saw the sights. As I made it up to Seattle before Steve, I spent some quality time with my dad and we hit up a local favorite, Pizza Bank. Amazing Italian...amazing. I had the baked penne and as always it did not disappoint.


The next morning Steve flew in and we spent most of the day in Seattle. Before venturing over to the city I was hungry and in need of some breakfast so we went to Urban Coffee Lounge in Juanita Village right down the road from our house. Great coffee, great pastries, no seating. We had to sit outside in the rain until a seat opened up inside. If the owners ever read this...more seats please! (We never made it over to Vivace in Seattle so the latte at Urban Coffee kinda made up for it)


Once in Seattle we escaped the rain by visiting the Seattle Art Museum. To the best of my memory I had never visited SAM before and it was a blast, especially on a (typical Seattle) rainy day.


Pictures found here and here.

After SAM, we attempted to find some lunch and because of our hunger and unwillingness to walk up hills in rain any longer ended up eating this crap:


It was not good, and I can't even remember where we got it...Columbia Center?

That evening we made up for our lunch at Than Brothers in Redmond (11 locations in the Greater Seattle area) and it was great. Two thumbs up for Than Bros Pho. Simple menu, cheap...and cream puffs for appetizers (forgot to get picture of them...I was too hungry). I had veggie pho with tofu and both Steve and my dad had chicken. Both the tofu and chicken were great. So good.


The following day (Wednesday...Thanksgiving eve) we went back to Seattle and did the Ride the Ducks tour. As we are not morning people, we missed the earlier tours we originally wanted to make, so we bought tickets for the 2:00 pm tour and took some time to enjoy Seattle Center. To summarize, I rock skee-ball and Steve rocks air hockey. I even won a way cool safari tiger (?) stuffed animal. Seattle Center also rocks (and we were so thankful for blue skies...yay!).





The Ride the Ducks tour was awesome...just go in summer. We were freezing!!! The tour is 90 minutes long with 60 minutes on land and 30 minutes on the water. Sights from the tour:

(yum)

(cutest boat ever.)

(love this. and evidently a UW med student lives here. my dream: UW med school and an awesome boat. so jealous of him. so jealous.)

After the tour we had the first of two dinners of the day: Dick's Drive-In. wonderful. We hit up the Queen Anne location and I had a cheeseburger, fries and vanilla shake while Steve had a deluxe burger, cheeseburger, and fries.

We later went to dinner with my dad at La Corona close to home in Kirkland and I attempted to eat the chile verde (pork, chile verde, rice, beans, tortillas, yum). It was excellent, however my eyes were bigger than my stomach and it went home with me in a to-go box. Love La Corona.


The following day was Thanksgiving. Forgot my camera at home (across the street. I'm lazy, get over it) but the food was delicious. Great company, great food...wonderful.

Friday Steve and I headed over to Uwajimaya in Bellevue for lunch and had some ramen. It was good, as I expected it would be.


Later that day we took another trip back to Seattle, this time with my dad, for the Christmas Tree lighting at Westlake Center. Fun and busy as always. I love Christmas and I love Seattle. Put the two together....love it even more.

(love)

(santa was there!)

After the lighting of the tree we rushed over to Daily Grill for dinner before everyone else decided they too were hungry. I had the jumbo lump crab cakes and strawberry shortcake for dessert. It was delicious. (sorry for the horrible pics...bad lighting)



Saturday we hung low at the house and Steve peaced out in the early evening to catch his 7:00 pm flight to San Diego (lucky duck...who wouldn't love to do training for work in SD?). My dad and I headed over to Ginger Teriyaki in Juanita and I had the (2nd) most amazing chicken katsu. (The most amazing is made by Steve's lovely kasan...aka mom.)


And then I had to head to Sea-Tac for a red-eye back to the east coast...I miss Seattle.